It isn’t often that a movie delivers exactly what one expects after a look at the cast and the artists behind the camera. “Tricky Brains” is one that does. It is essentially a series of related skits that hang on a threadbare and often ignored plot with Ng Man Tat acting goofy as Yan Chi, Andy Lau as his son, rising young executive Chi Man Kit and Stephen Chow acting sly and goofy as Jing Koo. Koo is a trickster who gets big money for example, to have a cheating spouse sent to a mental institution. Rosamund Kwan as Lucy is all refined elegance and understated, almost perfect beauty with very little to do. Kit wants to marry her; her father wants her to learn his business from the ground up and former suitor Macky wants to get back into the picture. He is upset that Lucy is interested in a low born striver like Kit much more than in any newly kindled feelings for her. Chingmy Yau struts through her best friend role in short skirts and tight tops and has on terrifically funny scene in a restaurant with Chow when he lets the inaccurate information that he has AIDS slip. She keeps up with Chow, one of the great physical comedians of our age, so well that the viewer can’t tell who the scene was written for.

Like many Wong Jing films, “Tricky Brains” is too long, even including the footage that was obviously left out in a couple of very abrupt cuts from an exterior crowd scene to the Chi abode, transitionless transitions without even a “meanwhile, back at the apartment”. The final duel between Koo and the Ultimate Tricky Expert, a new claimant to his throne, just plods along wasting some funny bits that get lost in cinematic padding. The Super Glue gag was spot on the first time it was used in the last act but didn’t do anything when it was appeared again two minutes later.

There are enough laugh out loud moments in “Tricky Brains” to make it worth seeing.